In focus: Mu Sochua

Mu Sochua

Mu Sochua is an elected Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) opposition member of the Cambodian parliament and a mother of three children. In 2002 she mobilized 12,000 women candidates to run for commune elections, with over 900 women winning and still actively promoting the women's agenda at the grass-roots level. In that same year she helped create and pass the Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill, which imposes severe penalties on marital rape and abuse of minors. Her work in Cambodia also includes campaigns with men to end domestic violence and the spread of HIV/AIDS; working for the rights of female entrepreneurs; working for labor laws that provide fair wages and safe working conditions for female workers; and working for the development of communities for squatters with schools, health centers, sanitation, and employment.

A recent article by the New York Times describes Mu Sochua as “the most prominent woman in Cambodia’s struggling political opposition”. The article continues: Mu Sochua, 55, is campaigning now, three years before the next election, because she is almost entirely excluded from government-controlled newspapers and television (…) She has no time to lose (…) A former minister of women’s affairs, she did as much as anyone to put women’s issues on the agenda of Cambodia as it emerged in the 1990s from decades of war and mass killings. But she lost her public platform in 2004 when she broke with the government, and she is now finding it as difficult to promote her ideas”.

To learn more about Mu Sochua visit: www.musochua.org.